South Florida Crime

MIAMI (CBSMiami) – The Drug Enforcement Administration reached a financial settlement with pharmacy giant Walgreens for the company violating rules dealing with the distribution of powerful prescription painkillers.

The DEA said Walgreens committed multiple violations of the Controlled Substances Act and record-keeping violations dealing with drugs like oxycodone. The violations allowed oxycodone to be improperly sold to abusers for illegal sales on the black market, according to the DEA.

Walgreens, which has more than 8,000 stores nationwide, once had 53 of the top 100 pharmacies that purchased oxycodone at one point in 2012. One Walgreens in Fort Myers went from selling 95,800 units of oxycodone in 22009 to more than 2.1 million in 2011, roughly 67 percent of the oxycodone purchased by pharmacies in that zip code in 2011.

Florida has been a major East Coast source of highly addictive painkillers. An ongoing crackdown in recent years including numerous arrests has reduced the number of illegal “pill mills” operating in the state.